


Welcoming The Bound

by RavenDarkwood



Series: Hunt the Darkness [2]
Category: 2P Hetalia - Fandom, Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: America (mentioned) - Freeform, Cecil Palmer (metioned), Chronicles of Darkness, Gen, Scotland (mentioned), World of Darkness, lots of mentioned characters - Freeform, nwod
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 17:27:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7901416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenDarkwood/pseuds/RavenDarkwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Matthew Williams it's been too long since he's been to Calatio, or maybe not long enough... He returns to the city now, with  new Sin-Eater James Faulkner. There are strange things happening in Calatio.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Welcoming The Bound

**Author's Note:**

> James is 2p!Canada

_“What the Hell are you?”_

A very good question. Once upon a time he had been human. Or maybe he never was. There was conflicting information. Information that Matthew had never really been privy to. He didn’t have any direct contact with the Twilight Network, not even now.

But that doesn’t really answer the question. What the Hell is he? Not exactly an easy question.

Or maybe it was? Sure, what he was wasn’t as known as vampires or werewolves or something, but it wasn’t like it was such a hard concept.

Once upon a time he had been human. Then he died. 

He also came back.

And he didn’t come back alone.

They called themselves Sin-Eaters, or sometimes The Bound. It makes a certain amount of sense, after all they were, in fact, bound. Despite the beating of their hearts and the warm breath in their lung they were bound to death. 

There had to be a will to live to become a Sin-Eater, and a Geist to give them the key back to life.

It was their binding with the Geister that brought them back to life, a minor deity of death. They transformed by the Geister. Maybe. There was still conflicting information. Some say that those who could become Sin-Eaters had always had one foot firmly placed in the beyond.

Still, they were gifted with new found abilities by binding with a Geist, and in return they would share their bodies with the Geister. They would be constantly haunted as ghosts grew stronger around them, and were attracted to the sin-eaters.

For the longest time Matthew thought he thought he was alone in this. He had no knowledge of the Twilight Network (an underground network of communication for the Sin-Eaters), and his Geist wasn’t exactly up to explaining things.

Matthew Williams died in a freezing river, and the Forgotten Cub came back with him.

The Forgotten Cub was just that, a cub. A polar bear cub to be specific, a starved looking one. It always stands on its hind legs, its fur matted and wet, frozen in places. The voice it speaks in a high, childlike voice, just as childlike as Forgotten Cub acts. Around it’s neck and wrists it wears worn copper jewelry. At one point there seemed to be symbols carved into the metal, but it was beyond reading now.

It almost made sense with how young Matthew was when he got Forgotten Cub. It was probably a good thing that Forgotten Cub resembled his favorite toy/imaginary friend so closely or Matthew might still be gone. Since the accident, before he had met another Sin-Eater, he had just thought that his imaginary friend was hurt in the accident too, and that’s why he didn’t look like the toy anymore.

He did his best to ignore the ghosts that seemed to follow him around, grow stronger with him. How Forgotten Cub (Kuma Matthew would often call it, after the stuffed animal he kept with him always as a child) whispered and whining for him to eat, consume the ghosts, how it was always hungry. How sometimes when he looked at people he could see what they would look when they died, to the point where the vision seemed so much more real than actual reality.

It wasn’t until he traveled to America on a student visa, to Calatio that he met another Sin-Eater for the first time. Or really, another Sin-Eater met him.

It wasn’t like Grell was hard to miss. She was just one of those people that stood out in the crowd. Matthew was the one hard to see, just as he had always been. Especially next to her.

If someone were to ask Matthew was color he was before he had met Grell he would have said white, maybe a light lavender color.

She taught him how to be red.

Beautiful, bloody red.

Calatio was a good time for him. He finally learned what he was and started to be able to control some of the gifts that he was given in his second life. He got a boyfriend, a job.

Everything went wrong when his boyfriend found out what he was. 

When Alfred was transformed into something no longer human.

When his boyfriend blamed him.

There was another accident.

Matthew ran to Canada alone. He fell back into his old ways.

Sin-Eaters knew how to celebrate life after all.

Live like you’re dying.

Because you are. Every second of every day everyone was dying. The only difference between them and Sin-Eaters was that they weren’t allowed to die. Not yet. Not until their Geister got what they wanted.

Not that Matthew knew what Kuma wanted. Kuma probably didn’t even know what it wanted. Besides to eat.

It was at one of these parties that Matthew met other Sin-Eaters. Yes, it wasn’t always easy to find them, as the hunters didn’t know about them and they wanted to keep it that way. The easiest way, probably the most obvious way as well, was to find those with Geister following them around. So far it seemed like only Sin-Eaters could see Geister, and they were the only ones that Geister can bind with.

That was how he ended up in this particular krew, the Gray Laddies, sitting next to this particular Sin-Eater, James, on his way back to Calatio. Apparently something was happening there, they didn’t know what, and the ghosts of the city were getting all riled up. Even the harmless ones.

Something big must be going down.

So Alasdair asked four members of the Gray Laddies (the other two Matthew hadn’t met yet), to stay in the city and deal with the ghost issues. Piece of cake.  
Well, James was completely new at being a Sin-Eater, having only died a few months ago. James was… Well.

Matthew didn’t consider himself a small guy. At six foot he had a good amount of muscle on him, nothing that a over sized sweater couldn’t hide. James was… very different. At seven foot, muscular, and possessing a rather disinterested and tired resting bitch face James didn’t exactly seem like someone to be trifled with.

He died as a consequence to rescuing a dog. 

It made kind of ironic sense that his Geist was Rabid Grim, a giant black wolf with snarly fur and a snout flecked with foam and blood. It only spoke in snarls, so thankfully most of the time it was just as quiet as the Sin-Eater it was attached to.

Silence was something that Matthew was used to, but mostly on his part. It was almost…

“Have you been to Calatio before?” The question was easy enough, though maybe not because he had been working himself up to asking it for about a half an hour now. Matthew didn’t turn his eyes away from the road, he had far too many driving accidents, but he could feel James’ eyes on him.

“I haven’t.” Well, that was an easy enough answer. Also a dangerous one. James was so unprepared.

Nodding just a touch too hurriedly Matthew still didn’t turn away from the road. “There’s a vampire prince in the city. Do you know what that means?”

“...A ton of vampires? Isn’t there usually a vampire prince in a large city?”

“Yes, but Calatio isn’t just a vampire city. There’s a huge… clan? I think that’s the right word? Pack? Anyways, there’s a shit ton of werewolves too. And there’s mages in the city, not as much as the vampires or werewolves, but enough to cause trouble. And so much… more.”

As he processed this information James leaned forwards, too tall to fit in the space of Matthew’s truck. “I’m guessing there’s a good amount of hunters too?”

At that Matthew shrugged, watching the city loom over them in the distance. “I’ve heard rumors… one particularly bad one recently, but I haven’t actually met one. It wasn’t exactly uncommon for one of the supernatural to end up dead. We stay out of everyone’s sight. The less people know about Sin-Eaters the better.”

James nodded, shifting in his seat again while at the same time crossing his arms over his admittedly attractive chest. “Are there any Sin-Eaters in the city?”

“I’ve only met one other that lives there permanently, though once the other two come there will be five of us in the city. Well, that I know of at least. It’s a large city, so more Sin-Eaters that I just haven’t noticed yet is completely possible. Hey, do you know anything about the other two?” Matthew’s eyes flickers over to James once before returning to the road.

James shook his head, turning his own tired eyes back towards the city. “I don’t.”

There was silence again, and this time it was James who broke it. He drew his long, strawberry blond hair back into a ponytail. “What was the rumor that you heard? The bad one?”  
Matthew chewed on his lower lip as he thought of a good way to explain it. “Well, it’s not really a problem for us, per say, but we could get caught in the crossfire, and more hunters in one area is just not very good in general…” He trailed off, ignoring the way that James was staring at him. “Alright, tell me what you know about the Horsemen?”

James paused for a moment, collecting his thoughts. “Not much. The Five Horsemen each symbolize a certain way to die. They’re more… patron saints or avatars of the certain way to die, or like gods of death, the way that Geists-”

“Geister,” Matthew corrected, purely on impulse. “The plural of Geist is Geister. Because it’s German, I think…” Matthew trailed off as James just stared at him, and because of James’ resting bitch face it was tough to tell if James was glaring or not. “...Never mind, keep going.”

James stared at Matthew with his unreadable expression before turning away, picking at the seat of Matthew’s truck. “The way that _Geister_ are minor gods of death. No one really knows though. They’re also lords over the different Thresholds that Sin-Eaters fall under. War is the Horsemen for The Torn, people who died violently.”

Matthew nodded, a worried look coming over his face. “According to Alasdair we’re going to have one of The Bleeding Ones with us while we deal with the city ghosts.”

James frowned, but nodded anyways. He had a feeling that this was one of those weird stereotypes that the different Thresholds had for one another, but it wasn’t exactly something that he had experience with. Matthew had been a Sin-Eater a lot longer than James after all. “Famine is the Horsemen of The Silent, those who died by deprivation.”

“The other Sin-Eater who lives in Calatio is a Staved One, though she doesn’t look like it most of the time. Grell Sutcliff. Do yourself a favor and stay out of her way.”

James paused, waiting for Matthew to continue, perhaps tell why he should avoid Grell, but Matthew didn’t continue. There was silence for a few minutes before James continued. “Death itself is the Horsemen of The Prey.” He looked over at Matthew. “The Eaten and Drowned Ones. Those who die by nature. You.”

Matthew still didn’t turn away from the road, but he went stiff. Slowly one hand reached up to rub the fang earring that was dangling from his ear. “Me,” he agreed softly, and in the back seat Forgotten Cub giggled. They both ignored it.

“Two more to go,” James grunted, shifting in the too small (well too small for him) seat. “Pestilence is the Horsemen of The Stricken, The Ravaged Ones. Sin-Eaters that die by disease. Me.” James lifted up his hand and shook it, so that the stained hospital bracelet around his wrist spun independently. “And lastly Chance, The Gray Horsemen, the Horsemen of the Forgotten, The Lightning-Struck, those who died by chance, not to confuse the two names. Oh, and The Gray Horsemen might not even exist. Why did you make me go over them?” James’ voice was already beginning to crack from use. 

“It’s good for me to know what you know, so I can teach you what I’ve learned,” Matthew answered smoothly. “And this particular hunter relates to the Horsemen, or at least what the Church knows about them. The top four hunters of the Roman Catholic Church are named after what they know as the Four Horsemen, and their top hunter is known as Mors.” For the first time Matthew turned away from the road, eyeing James. “Death. From what I’ve heard he’s exclusively a vampire hunter, and Alfred says that Cecil is hinting that a vampire hunter is coming to Calatio, and Alfred’s says that’s what the rumor among the mages are.”

James paused to think about that, before finally tilting his head. “Cecil?”

Matthew opened his mouth, hopefully to explain, but he just shook his head and sighed heavily as they entered Calatio. “Cecil.”

Between them Matthew’s radio crackled to life, even though neither of them had turned it on. “Hello listeners…”

James stared at the radio in shock, his heavy lidded eyes going wide when he noticed that instead of a station number Matthew’s radio was showing a small pixel picture of an eye.

For the second time that day Matthew’s attention was drawn away from the road. He smirked over at James, who stared back at him in confusion. “Welcome to Calatio.”


End file.
